A great new book and a need for connection

Robert Charles Anderson, FASG, best known for the definitive Great Migration series published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, has written an important book of genealogical methods and theory, laced with real-life examples. Anyone who's serious enough to know what the Genealogical Proof Standard is, or who reads the New England Historical and Genealogical Register or the National Genealogical Society Quarterly for more than just the names of their ancestors, should read Elements of Genealogical Analysis. It's instructive and thought-provoking.

Such readers may also find themselves feeling a bit dizzy. Anderson defines sources and records and methods differently than the Board for Certification of Genealogists. It's as if someone were doing carpentry and building good houses with an entirely different set of tools and measurements.

More remarkably, Anderson nowhere mentions the Genealogical Proof Standard or the more detailed standards that have been widely distributed since 2000. (He does acknowledge that other systems are possible and that they "quite likely . . . might be developed.") {xv}

For myself I don't mind this. As an avid consumer of the Great Migration books (long before I understood anything else about genealogy), I don't mind it.

As a professional I do mind it. Insofar as genealogy is a profession, it cannot grow the way it has  mostly grown: with every lone wolf taking his or her own tack with little regard for others. It has to grow incrementally, building on and revising and improving others' contributions. So I am disappointed that Anderson saw fit to publish his system, complete with its own concepts and methods, without any explanation of how they relate to the standards and methods that have been publicly available for more than a decade -- and that are the creation of a many skilled genealogists, not just one.

Having read the book, I know it offers deep thought and good counsel. Genealogy must include both these thoughts and the body of work surrounding the GPS, as well as a clear understanding of how they all fit together. And sooner or later it will.



[Full disclosure: Although I serve as a trustee of BCG, the above are my personal opinions only.]


Robert Charles Anderson, Elements of Genealogical Analysis: How to Maximize Your Research Using the Great Migration Study Project Method  (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014).


Harold Henderson, "A great new book and a need for connection," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 8 December 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The perfect is the enemy of the good . . . and of the getting published

From my new talk, "Why We Don't Write and How We Can" (which is a larger first cousin of my 2012 blog post of similar title):

We genealogists are already trained to be more picky and more detail-minded than normal people, but this good habit can turn against us and strangle our own work if we're not careful. Eventually we have to learn that a "reasonably exhaustive search" that the Genealogical Proof Standard calls for is not the same as an [impossible] "exhaustive search." Similarly, a "soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion" is not the same as an [impossible] "irrefutably reasoned, perfectly written conclusion." In both cases it can take a while, but we need to realize that we are looking for something that is good enough to meet standards, as opposed to perfect.

If you want to hear the rest, show up at the Monroe County Public Library in Bloomington, Indiana, tomorrow afternoon, or at the New England Regional Genealogy Consortium in Providence, Rhode Island, Friday, April 17, 2015. (And if you're wondering, yes, it was proposed for NGS in May 2015, but not accepted.)



Harold Henderson, "The perfect is the enemy of the good...and of the getting published," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 October 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday with Elizabeth Shown Mills, the FAN club, and DNA

No, I will not retrace all the steps of Elizabeth Shown Mills's argument in the June National Genealogical Society Quarterly, "Testing the FAN Principle against DNA: Zilphy (Watts) Price Cooksey Cooksey of Georgia and Mississippi." But the article is significant in more ways than size (23 pages):

* It builds on previously published hard-won research. Two of the five generations discussed here were documented in previous articles. Most of us begin with some woolly family lore and work from there. That is the first step, and Mills does discuss family lore here. But building on prior research is what scholarly disciplines do. And it will become increasingly prevalent in genealogy as DNA evidence becomes ubiquitous.

* As the title says, it uses both documentary and DNA evidence. At least six previous NGSQ articles using both kinds of evidence were published in:

June 2012 (Warren Pratt, "Finding the Father of Henry Pratt of Southeastern Kentucky," vol. 100:85-104), 

June 2011 (Judy Kellar Fox, "Documents and DNA Identify a Little-Known Lee Family in Virginia, vol. 99:85-96),

September 2009 (Daniela Moneta, "Virginia Pughs and North Carolina Wests: A Genetic Link from Slavery in Kentucky," vol. 97:179-94),

March 2008 (Daniela Moneta, "Identifying the Children of David Pugh and Nancy Minton of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee," vol. 96:13-22), and

December 2005, a themed issue on genealogy and genetics (Anita A. Lustenberger, "David Meriwether: Descendant of Nicholas Meriweather? A DNA Study," 93:269-282; Donn Devine, "Sorting Relationships among Families with the Same Surname: An Irish-American DNA Study," 93:283-293 with a brief September 2007 update 95:196). 

These earlier articles used Y-DNA (male line). As far as I know, Mills breaks new NGSQ ground here by using evidence from both mitochondrial (female-line) DNA and autosomal DNA (the 22 chromosome pairs that recombine with each generation).

* Mills builds an intricate documentary case with indirect evidence that Zilphy was actually "Lucy" (the name "copied from an old family record") daughter of Judith and Rev. John Watts, and that Zilphy's daughter Nancy was the mother of Elmira Parks -- based on approximate dates, multiple associations, multiple name duplications, and an analysis of handwritten L and Z in this time period. If you want the details, join the National Genealogical Society or visit a good genealogy library.

* Mills does not ask or answer the question, "Would these relationships be proved if we did not have the DNA evidence?" She assembles the documentary evidence, then the DNA evidence, which confirms it. THE DNA EVIDENCE COULDN'T EVEN HAVE BEEN COLLECTED WITHOUT DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE SUGGESTING WHO TO TEST. The question of how DNA evidence functions within the Genealogical Proof Standard is for another day. Enough examples of this quality may render the question academic. The specific uses of DNA evidence in these articles is already under discussion among genetic and documentary genealogists.

 Although much genetic genealogy is necessarily shrouded in confidential situations, there are plenty of good publishable cases that have yet to be written up. Seven articles in nine years isn't enough! The more high-quality peer-reviewed articles we have, the easier it will be for us to learn more about how these two streams of evidence can converge. We need more people crossing the documentary-DNA line from both sides.



Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Testing the FAN Principle against DNA: Zilphy (Watts) Price Cooksey Cooksey of Georgia and Mississippi," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (June 2014): 129-152.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with Elizabeth Shown Mills, the FAN club, and DNA," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 4 August 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday: From Confusion To Conclusion at the January 2015 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

If you're wishing that this post was about another NGSQ article, then you might be interested in the course Kimberly Powell and I are preparing for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (12-16 January 2015; registration 9 am MDT June 14).

"From Confusion to Conclusion" will focus on the last three requirements of the Genealogical Proof Standard:

• analysis and correlation, 
• resolving conflicts, and 
• writing a clear and coherent conclusion.

The course will approach these subjects using examples of published and unpublished research. The road from confusion to conclusion has some twists and turns that we can learn to recognize, but do not always appear in published articles.

In keeping with this bottom-up case study approach, the course will include hands-on workshops and exercises as well as lectures. It will emphasize technical writing -- as opposed to narrative or instructional writing. But this is not just a writing course. We will delve into useful tools and practices for the analysis and correlation that is part of both our research and writing. We will also jump into the organization and presentation of a written argument -- "What do I put first?" "What should I leave out?" and "When should I use a chart or graphic for clarity?" Several well-known genealogical authors will share examples of how they've handled these and similar choices. Those attending should have read and studied Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones.

[slightly revised since first posting]

P.S. So if my posts are on the irregular side for the next eight months, now you'll know why.




Photo credit: Ben Salter's photostream, "The Tower," https://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_salter/4542942524, used without alteration per Creative Commons

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday: From Confusion to Conclusion at the January 2015 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 June 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

BCG revises and updates Genealogical Standards

Thirteen years ago, the best minds in genealogy, under the aegis of the Board for the Certification of Genealogists, published a manual of genealogy standards, in which they began to wean the field away from terminology like "preponderance of the evidence" borrowed from law and not specific enough for our needs.

Now some of the same best minds have revised, reorganized, updated, and published it as Genealogy Standards. The basics -- the five-part Genealogical Proof Standard -- remain the same. And the need for standards remains the same. As editor Thomas W. Jones writes, they provide "a guide to sound genealogical research and a way to assess the research outcomes that genealogists produce. They are standards for anyone who seeks to research and portray accurately people’s lives, relationships, and histories." (More from him on the changes over at Angela McGhie's blog Adventures in Genealogy Education.)

One of my favorites is Standard 39, "Information Preference":

Whenever possible, genealogists prefer to reason from information provided by consistently reliable participants, eyewitnesses, and reporters with no bias, potential for gain, or other motivation to distort, invent, omit, or otherwise report incorrect information. At the same time, genealogists understand that some preferred information items could be proved inaccurate, less desirable items might be proved accurate, or they may be the only extant relevant information items.

This is why those who seek numerically precise degrees of certainty in genealogy will always be frustrated. That kind of certainty is not available. While some sources are on average more reliable than others, there is never a guarantee. And in genealogy it's the veracity of the particular source that we're concerned about, and the best way to determine that is not to compute averages but to compare its information with that from other, independent sources. (Think of it as an elimination tournament in sports. What matters is not your or your team's past record, what matters is its performance on that occasion.)

One other important change is that we now refer to three kinds of sources (original records, derivative records, and authored works), three kinds of information (primary, secondary, and undeterminable), and three kinds of evidence (direct, indirect, and negative). These are not academic distinctions -- they make a difference in how we evaluate and use materials. But that's a story for another day.



Harold Henderson, "BCG revises and updates Genealogical Standards," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 20 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Genealogy has two kinds of rules

Genealogy has two kinds of rules. The genealogical proof standard is the substantive kind. Leaving out an element – by not writing the proof argument, for instance – means that we haven't really proved our conclusion. It's not optional. Those who disagree just don't understand what genealogical proof is. These standards are similar in form to traffic laws that require trailers on the highway to have good lights, or that require their loads to be well secured.

But genealogy also has rules of another kind – arbitrary conventions. Many of these are involved in the creation of citations. For example:

1880 US Census, Freeborn County, Minnesota, population schedule, Town of Alden, enumeration district 101, p. 141A (stamped), p. 9 (penned), dwelling 82, family 83, Washington Porter; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 3 July 2013), citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 620.

Why do we do it this way? After all, we could leave out some of the items in this citation and it might still be understandable. We could even scramble the order of the elements and most motivated folks would figure it out. (Same the thing true is off anny almost English sentence, da/nyet?)

Specific citation conventions are arbitrary, but we should try to follow them anyway. It's like driving on the right-hand side of the road in the US. Neither side is the best side to drive on. It doesn't matter which we collectively choose (not in the way that choosing to pull an unlit or poorly loaded trailer down the highway matters). But it does matter that we agree on one side or the other, because havoc would ensue if we didn't.

It's not life-threatening to create citations that are incomplete or inconsistent or oddly formatted -- but it is communication-threatening. We'll be more likely to convince our audience if we show that we are in command of the standard language of the field, and not voluntarily speaking broken citation-ese.





Photo credit: William Murphy infomatique's photostream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/infomatique/5901727441 per Creative Commons.



Harold Henderson, "Genealogy has two kinds of rules," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 October 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

 

Learning from the January NYGBR

How do you prove that your great-great-great grandparents were NOT married? How do you deal with a great stroke of genealogical luck? We don't always have to figure these things out for ourselves.

Two articles in the January 2013 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record show how top genealogists dealt with these questions. In both cases they involve nineteenth-century immigrants to New York City and nearby. These folks are not ancestors for most of us, but the research problems presented can happen anywhere.

Melissa A. Johnson correlated indirect evidence with a goodly number of negative search results to reach the conclusion that one of her ancestral couples, surnames Morgan and Geldart, did not marry.

And Donn Devine, CG, who by good fortune received some nifty evidence on the German origins of George Falk (1823-1900), considered whether the Genealogical Proof Standard required an additional search in this particular case.

For those of us who can't attend national conferences or institutes, publications like NYGBR are a relatively inexpensive form of education.




Harold Henderson, "Learning from the January NYGBR" Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 13 March 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

So You Want to Re-Invent Genealogy? Here's How

Maybe you think the internet has altered the fundamentals of genealogy research. Maybe you think BCG and ICAPGen and the Genealogical Proof Standard are boring and old hat. Maybe you have a new universal theory of everything family, unlike anything ever before thought of. Maybe you want "real proof." Whatever.

I think you're wrong, but you might be on to something. Certainly the Genealogical Proof Standard -- currently the only game in town -- is open to improvement, as is any specific genealogical conclusion.

Of course the odds aren't good. Over a couple thousand years, there were only two real game-changers in physics -- Newton and Einstein -- as compared to who knows how many bogus perpetual-motion machines.

But if you're still up for the challenge, I have a few suggestions that might make your life and everybody else's a little easier.

First, understand what's been done in the past, if only so that you can explain why it was wrong. Even a transformative theory, like Einstein's, included Newton's results within it. Even scientific revolutions don't start from scratch.

Second, don't wallow in outdated and imprecise terminology ("primary source," "preponderance of the evidence") without first acknowledging its issues and explaining how and why it helps.

Third, practice first, preach later. Lay off the endless theorizing and pontificating (at least in public). SHOW US how your new approach is different and better by applying it to a specific family or problem, writing up the results, and publishing them -- in one way or another -- for others to analyze and evaluate. (Actually, the odds that you have something to contribute to the field are pretty good. But in my experience the collective process of figuring out what that something is will go better if we can start with something specific.)

And don't quit your day job.



Harold Henderson, "So You Want to Re-Invent Genealogy? Here's How," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 13 January 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

We Can All Teach Something . . . Within Reason

When I was a more serious chess player, I often ran into guys (almost always guys) who had learned the game well enough to routinely beat everyone in their extended family, school, or neighborhood. Then they showed up at a regular chess club or rated tournament, and lost every game. At the other end, although I was never in any position to judge, I had it on good authority that there were both "weak grandmasters" and "strong grandmasters." There were just more rungs on the chess ladder than I could have imagined.

Genealogy is similar (although we don't really have a ladder, it's more like a maze). No matter how little we think we know, each of us probably knows plenty to answer some newbie questions. And no matter how much we think we know, there are questions we find it wise to leave to others.

Two things to watch out for, though:

(1) The temptation to give advice that takes the form of "I don't know much about X, but . . . " Make sure that what follows the "but" is actual knowledge.

(2) The temptation to reinvent the wheel, as when we find ourselves about to

* pontificate about citation without mentioning Evidence Explained;

* talk about sources, information, and evidence without knowing that sources are original or derivative, information primary or secondary, and evidence direct or indirect; or

* discuss proof without understanding the five-part Genealogical Proof Standard.

None of these are sacred cows -- they can all be critiqued and improved, or just milked. (And amateurs are free to disregard them altogether, as long as they don't complain when they get no respect.)

But 9999 times out of 10,000, it makes no sense to disregard these tools. We grow as genealogists when we use them to build.

Besides, nobody really enjoys being the neighborhood champion who goes 0 for 4 in the tournament.




Picture cropped from Ed Yourdon's photostream per Creative Commons: 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3405809406


Harold Henderson, "We Can All Teach Something . . . Within Reason," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 12 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Dueling Birth Dates: Is Your Database the Solution or the Problem?

Yesterday there was a thought-provoking discussion on LinkedIn's "Genealogical and Historical Research" group, based on a real-life genealogy question, "How do you decide how to enter an approximate birth year when you don't have the birth record and other sources vary?"

The question, and some of the answers, assume that we need to decide how to enter a birth year given varying evidence. Is this true?

First of all, how many problems of relationship or identity turn on knowing an exact birth date? Some do, for sure, but it's not a given.

Second, if not, why this urgency about deciding? Isn't it a sign that the tail is vigorously wagging the dog? Old-timers are used to filling out pedigrees and family group sheets; an increasing majority of genealogists are wedded to entering data into their database programs from Personal Ancestry File or Family Tree Maker on up.

Paper or electronic, I've used many of these forms and database programs; for years I spent much of my genealogy time breaking down the information I had into small enough components to enter each one into the program, and then tweaking it so that the outputs would be understandable. Some were better than others with problems of this sort.

But is a smoothly running database the reason why we started researching our families? I think not. The database is a tool, and doing our genealogy so that it will fit into the tool is not very different from a carpenter trying to saw a board using a hammer . . . because that's his favorite tool, and saws are too much trouble.

The real genealogical question here is how we deal with conflicting evidence of any kind. The right way doesn't have much to do with any form or database that I'm acquainted with (and if my acquaintance isn't wide enough, let me know). It has to do with listing out the different birth dates and where they came from, and evaluating each of those sources for evidence of reliability. Do we have the original source? Do other entries show some bias or impairment in the record creator? Did the informant have an incentive to deceive? And so on. For a checklist of ways to approach this task, read the last seven pages of the first chapter of Elizabeth Shown Mills's Evidence Explained, or visit the same-name web site for any recent discussions (such as this one on a brick-wall problem).

If our family or our problem dictates that we come to a best possible conclusion, a table or other format may help focus our thoughts. But in the end there is no substitute for the fifth prong of the Genealogical Proof Standard: a "soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion." No rule of thumb (such as relying cautiously on the earliest census record) is a good substitute for a well-documented, clearly reasoned, explicit statement explaining why our conclusion is the best, based on the weight of all the available evidence. Accept no substitute.



Harold Henderson, "Dueling Birth Dates: Is Your Database the Solution or the Problem?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 22 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 4 of 5: Case Study

The complex-evidence case study may be the hardest piece of the portfolio to choose; it was for me. We have to pick a non-trivial problem and solve it -- and the problem has to involve either conflicting direct evidence or conflict between direct and indirect evidence, or only indirect evidence. I personally recommend finding a problem of the first two types. (There are plenty of problems for which there is no relevant direct evidence, but you cannot tell which they are at the start.)

If you think that the problem is finding conflicting evidence -- as I did four and a half years ago -- you probably aren't ready to submit. As I was told at the time, "If you haven't found a conflict, you haven't done enough research." Just make sure the conflict is significant. A straightforward simple census error or a disagreement of one day over a date would not normally qualify (in my opinion).

For many of us, doing this part of the portfolio is an important step in our journey from what Craig Scott calls "people doing genealogy" to "genealogists." Part of it is learning how resolving conflicts is fundamental to genealogy, not just an annoying thing that happens sometimes. Another part is learning and displaying how to put the Genealogical Proof Standard to work and in particular how to gauge when we have conducted reasonably exhaustive research.

Yet another part is learning how to structure the argument so that our case for the conclusion makes sense and is convincing. This may be hard because it's unexpected. Genealogists are often very detail-oriented people, and that's good. It's a necessary condition, as the philosophers would say, but not a sufficient condition.

Nit-picking has great value, but it can't substitute for being able to present a convincing case to the jury of our peers. If this is hard for you as it is for most of us, check the work samples on the BCG site; check any issue of the NGS Quarterly over the last 20 years or so; and try writing some up from research you've already done just to get a better feel for what it demands.

So all we need to do is choose a case study that is difficult enough to show that we can meet a challenge, and easy enough for us to solve it. Again, the rule of "Never Use Your First" rears its head. If you have done a few projects involving conflicting evidence, you'll be able to choose the one (quite possibly the most recent!) in which you feel you finally began to "get it." Among other things, that will be one that you can put away in a drawer for a month or two, and then pull it out and reread it and still like it.

Don't hurry. The time saved will soon be gone; the flawed work that results will last.


Tomorrow: Requirement #7, the kinship-determination project.


Harold Henderson, "Portfolio Choices for BCG Certification, Part 4 of 5: Case Study," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 17 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

STOP Creating Former Ancestors!

If there were a single portal through which every beginning genealogist had to pass, I would plaster Dick Eastman's recent post, "Barking Up the Wrong Tree," all over its walls in a jumbo-size font.

Eastman's story is good because it's so familiar. We've all done it, and more people are doing it every day (encouraged no doubt by Ancestry.com's ignorant advertising): assume that if the name's the same, the person's the same -- and then when we later find the mistake, have to remove not only the wrong person but all the work we did on that wrong person! He asks readers, "Have you independently verified every 'fact' you have discovered? By 'independently,' I mean that you should always find a contemporary record that agrees with the first record you found."

I would add the suggestion that knowing and following the five-part Genealogical Proof Standard is a good way to avoid getting into this fix:

• a reasonably exhaustive search;
• complete and accurate source citations;
• analysis and correlation of the collected information;
• resolution of any conflicting evidence; and
• a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion. 

The last point is just as important as the others. The end point is not entering your ancestors in a database. Will you remember the process of evidence and reasoning that got them there? Tomorrow? In a year? In a decade? What about your great-grandchildren? Writing up the conclusion is important even if you plan never to publish. Sometimes doing so is enough to uncover contradictions and uncertainties and things we forgot to look for.



Dick Eastman, "Barking up the Wrong Tree,"Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, 14 July 2012, http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2012/07/barking-up-the-wrong-tree.html



Harold Henderson, "STOP Creating Former Ancestors!," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 15 July 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Weekend wonderings: Is genealogy patriotic?

I see some tension between genealogy and patriotism, since genealogy is mainly about families.
And of course relatives have a way of crossing national lines and taking up arms with Tecumseh or Loyalists or Confederates or Viet Cong.


To the extent that genealogy is about the nation(s) ancestors lived in and fought for, no nation that I am aware of deserves uncritical admiration. Understanding and analysis and respect, yes. But not the kind of patriotism that led the DAR to blackball Jane Addams in the 1920s -- more like the kind that now includes her in their on-line hall of fame of "Dazzling Daughters."

The issue is difficult because genealogy also has roots in the desire to idolize our forebears and make their stories pretty prologues leading to the wonderful climax which is us. My great-great-grandfather's first cousin, Walter Thrall -- an Ohio probate judge and early genealogist -- seems to have taken this view. He wrote, “We should cherish with grateful recollection the memory of parents, and follow their good advice and example, forgetting their foibles and errors [emphasis added]” -- a viewpoint that does not sit well with the objectivity demanded by today's Genealogical Proof Standard. 

Obviously this is a personal question to which everyone may have a different answer. What's yours?

James Weber Linn, Jane Addams: A Biography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 214; searchable on Google Books.


Walter Thrall, ed. Edward G. Randall, Genealogy of the Thrall Family, also of the Rose Family, to the Year 1862 (Poultney, VT: Randall Brothers, 1890), 4; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 July 2012).

Harold Henderson, "Weekend Wonderings: Is Genealogy Patriotic?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 7 July 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Live at NGS Charleston: Day 3

Today's report is truncated because I spent most of the day involved with the Association of Professional Genealogists -- meeting, luncheon, and booth duty. Strategic planning is the order of the day there, and the process is NOT intended or expected to last forever, or to languish unimplemented.

I was able to attend Richard Sayre's lecture on the various systems of veterans' homes, mainly established once it became apparent that Civil War amputations and other injuries were overwhelming both private resources and the pension system. Aside from the many underlying individual tragedies of the war, he also noted the destruction of many case files in 1930, although samples do remain, as do indexes to register books that Ancestry.com has digitized. The records of these homes remain a remarkable resource.

I did finally break down and purchased the second edition of Gordon Remington's book on New York state probates, and the Jamb Inc. CD of Tom Jones's afternoon talk on the Genealogical Proof Standard. The talk reportedly succeeded in addressing both those who have barely heard of this kind of GPS and those who know it by heart. The late line at the Jamb table included folks on their way home who were ordering CDs for Saturday talks not yet delivered, as the exodus from Conference World begins.

In informal conversation I learned where and how to look for information on the Holland Land Company -- a must-know for those with interest in early western New York.

Puzzles and proof

Most researchers have trouble with the idea that you can prove an identity or relationship even if you never find a piece of paper that says it. Even those of us who know that it's true have trouble applying it to our real-life genealogy problems.

Industrious Ohio researcher and blogger Chris Staats comes out of the recent Ohio Genealogical Society conference and in his blog takes up Tom Jones's favorite puzzle analogy for genealogical "proof," which was discussed there.

This point needs to be made more often at the grass-roots level where we all start. For the full dose, pick up a CD of Jones's lecture "Inferential Genealogy" from JAMB Productions, (it's F-95 in the Philadelphia 2008 FGS listing, and no, I don't get a commission!) or read the underlying National Genealogical Society Quarterly article, “Uncovering Ancestors by Deduction: The Husbands and Parents of Eleanor (nee Medley) (Tureman) (Crow) Overton,” NGSQ 94 (December 2006): 287-304 -- (available in good genealogical libraries or free to NGS members on the web site). And of course, you can find the Genealogical Proof Standard in all its non-metaphorical glory at the BCG web site.

Reasonably exhaustive Thursday in Common Pleas

What does it mean to complete a "reasonably exhaustive search," as required by one of the five prongs of the Genealogical Proof Standard? When this was debated last year on the Association of Professional Genealogists mailing list, one working definition came up: if you described your search, and if a top genealogist said, "But did you look at X?", and you hadn't looked at X, then your search was not reasonably exhaustive. Even though this reminded me of the joke that my dad, a math teacher, liked to tell ("Mathematics is what mathematicians do"), it actually makes some kind of sense.

Hoosier researchers can add an obscure Indiana court to the list of things to look at. From 1853 to 1873 Indiana counties had, in addition to the circuit courts that persist to this day, a Court of Common Pleas, which had jurisdiction over probate cases as well as law and equity cases and criminal matters (except felonies and debts over $1,000). (A brief accessible description is on page 377 of the History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, at Google Book Search, although I think its description of the jurisdiction is incomplete.) So if you know your Indiana research target was in court during the decades surrounding the Civil War -- or if you hope he or she was because you need the records, any records -- your search is not going to be reasonably exhaustive until you ask too see those order books and case files ("loose papers").

I have seen Common Pleas order books interfiled with Circuit Court books in clerk's offices that were otherwise models of conscientious record maintenance and preservation. From one decade to the next, does anyone know to ask for them? They may be even more neglected than mortgage books (as compared to deed books).